Sondra Perry: Eclogue for [In]habitability

New media artist Sondra Perry, winner of the 2017 Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Prize for early-career black artists, uses video installations to interrogate how African Americans are treated by the media and by law enforcement. Some previous pieces, like netherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 1.0.3, use explicit metaphors linking technology and society. For example, the "blue screen of death" transforms into the "blue wall of silence," the term for police officers' cover-ups of their colleagues' mistakes. She devises special setups for watching these pieces, like exercise bikes with screens rigged over the bars. Here, Perry will create an immersive video and sculpture show that, if her past work is any guide, exploits technological "glitches" to reveal systemic failure.